Google Cloud Ups the Ante on VMware Workload Migration

Google Cloud is offering incentives of up to 40% for customers that move over their VMware workloads.

VMware Cloud Foundation on Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE) has gone generally available. Google Cloud and VMware parent Broadcom in February first announced that Google Cloud would support VMware Cloud Foundation license portability. Now they say Google Cloud fully supports the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) hybrid cloud platform.

“The partnership between Broadcom and Google Cloud continues to deliver significant value to our customers. Support for VMware Cloud Foundation and license portability entitlement with Google Cloud VMware Engine empowers on-premises customers to leverage their existing investments in VMware software to both cost effectively and seamlessly migrate to Google Cloud," said Abhay Kumar, Broadcom's global head of hyperscalers. "This innovation not only unlocks substantial cost savings and TCO benefits but also accelerates customers’ digital transformation journey.”

Broadcom's Abhay Kumar

As part of the expansion, Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE) has added capabilities like Aria Suite Enterprise and Aria Operations for Networks Enterprise. GCVE already supported vSphere, vSAN, NSX and HCX.

Supporting License Portability

Manoj Sharma, Google Cloud's director of product management, and Ash Ashutosh, global director, of solution sales, wrote that their company is supporting VCF "license portability entitlement."

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"Simply put, with GCVE commitment types that support portability, you only pay Google for the VMware Engine service and infrastructure, and can apply previously purchased VCF licenses. By bringing your own VCF subscriptions to GCVE, you can avoid the cost of purchasing new licenses, resulting in potential savings compared to previous pricing models," they said.

GCVE is offering a VE1 that will for a three-year prepaid commitment, port VMware licenses for as much as a 35% price reduction, they wrote. VE1 nodes are seeing 22% lower rates than Google Cloud previously priced them, according to the blog post. And VE2 nodes get a 37% discount for a one-year prepaid commitment, or 55% for three years.

Google Cloud is offering a migration services incentive that could reach 25% in incremental year-one spend. And internal consumption incentives could reach 15% in incremental year-one net consumption.

Google Cloud in the blog post specifically makes the claim that it can beat the prices of the Microsoft Azure VMware solution.

In addition, three-year "convertible commitments" let customers reuse existing GCVE commitments to bring VMware workload architectures into other Google Cloud services, such as Compute Engine. This will come at an additional cost, the company said.

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Migrating VMware Workloads: Partner Perspectives

Google Cloud said in its blog that it works closely with services partners to reduce friction for VMware customers migrating their workloads.

"Our partners have a significant opportunity to help enterprises bring VMware workloads to Google Cloud, and we're continuing to align our pricing, resources, and incentives to help partners address the opportunity," a Google Cloud spokesperson said.

Granite Telecommunications is among the customers working with Google Cloud for VMware licensing portability.

"Google has helped us navigate the VMware licensing changes every step of the way and we are excited about the future with Google Cloud VMware Engine providing us a fast path to transform our VMware workloads in Google Cloud," said Everett Chesley, Granite's director of IT infrastructure.